Thinkpads Forum

You don't need to mess with an edid flashing circuit or any of that mess. Plug the screen into the laptop and plug a vga monitor into the side. On post, switch to the external. Let windows boot, then run powerstrip and flash the edid from there (be sure to flash the proper edid, you don't want to set the wrong info for your external display). Reboot and it'll work like a charm. No hassle .

Gah, and people said it wasn't possible. Had I known (or thought to try...)

Mine at least reports (without external monitor):

"DDC communication with the monitor failed or is not supported."
"Reverting to EDID data provided by Windows and the display driver, if available."

Which in the other thread led me to believe it was not possible to do it in this way. But i guess that this is the point of connecting the external monitor - to let Windows read the EDID once of the active monitor during boot-up, and leave the laptop LCD alone...
I am aware that the DDC/CI is just a nice term for an I2C bus, but if a register in the BIOS blocks write access to it, then it is blocked.

Cirthix, can you send me any pictures or photos of the setup, unless it is all sealed now. Thanks

It's sealed. I get the same DDC communcation failure error when attempting to READ the edid, but it finds the chip without error when attempting to UPDATE the edid.

You do not need to be displaying anything to the laptop's panel to be able to write the edid, just select any attached display click update edid, and note the name on the confirmation dialog box. If the name is your external, skip that one and the next should be the QXGA.

So it's a blind write? Ugh, not liking that. I guess if it works, it works, and because the panel doesn't work with the original EDID ROM contents, it's not gonna hurt anything, but...

bhtooefr wrote:So it's a blind write? Ugh, not liking that. I guess if it works, it works, and because the panel doesn't work with the original EDID ROM contents, it's not gonna hurt anything, but...

It's blind in the sense that powerstrip can't check the contents, but after you reboot and the screen si detected properly, you can verify the edid using phoenix edid designer.

Had a friend here with the registered version of Powerstrip - $29 was just too much to see if changing just the Mfgr. week worked. The components costed me $5 in componets since i already had a busted T42 cable with connector.
For people who want to flash the QXGA panel, and don't have the cable available, you might aswell just buy the program - it is much easier to use than struggling with the cable and soldering iron, and it will turn out cheaper.

A big thank you to Cirthix for finding out that this is possible by a pure SW solution!

cirthix wrote:You don't need to mess with an edid flashing circuit or any of that mess. Plug the screen into the laptop and plug a vga monitor into the side. On post, switch to the external. Let windows boot, then run powerstrip and flash the edid from there (be sure to flash the proper edid, you don't want to set the wrong info for your external display). Reboot and it'll work like a charm. No hassle .

PowerStrip 3.83 does not find internal LCD's EDID EEPROM on bus in my Z60t and R60e notebooks - only EDID of external monitor if it attached.

cirthix wrote:You don't need to mess with an edid flashing circuit or any of that mess. Plug the screen into the laptop and plug a vga monitor into the side. On post, switch to the external. Let windows boot, then run powerstrip and flash the edid from there (be sure to flash the proper edid, you don't want to set the wrong info for your external display). Reboot and it'll work like a charm. No hassle .

3266fast wrote:PowerStrip 3.83 does not find internal LCD's EDID EEPROM on bus in my Z60t and R60e notebooks - only EDID of external monitor if it attached.

So does one have to have the old version of Powerstrip? Which version would that be?

crashnburn wrote:So does one have to have the old version of Powerstrip? Which version would that be?

this might help